


Patron Saint of the Lost

by LongLiveSidonie, MeganCebo (LongLiveSidonie), MeganCebo (orphan_account)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Gaslighting, Healing, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:29:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29553555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LongLiveSidonie/pseuds/LongLiveSidonie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LongLiveSidonie/pseuds/MeganCebo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/MeganCebo
Summary: She worked hard to escape her abusive partner, and the rest of humanity, for that matter. It was the only way to keep herself safe. And at peace. Jude found herself on an isolated forest moon (yes THAT forest moon), but quickly found a wrench in her plans.Another person stumbled across her path.And his name was Ben.Jude was forced to face her own demons as she aided him.Note. This is not written with concern for canon or to accurately define whatever the hell bacta does. I’m trying to have a little creative fun here, is all. So please be mindful of that caveat. While our beloved Redeemed Ben Solo is a pivotal character, it is not his story. It is Jude’s.
Relationships: Ben Solo/OFC
Kudos: 2





	1. 1

Jude was picking her way through the forest, east of the body of water she nicknamed the Bottomless Lake, when she came upon the first sign of another person. She spied a scrap of black material tangled in the twisted branches of a long-dead evergreen, the color much too rich for the tans and greens of the forest at mid-day. Trembling, she reached up, and yanked it free of the dried boughs. It was surprisingly soft to the touch, smooth black leather that was finely made. And large. And, to her dismay, distinctly human in shape. It was a man's glove. A large man, and judging by the state of the leather, only recently abandoned by its owner.

Jude stared at it, in dismay and shock. Another human? Here? She had done considerable research on this planetoid known as the "Forest Moon of Endor." It lay largely abandoned despite its lush greenery and ambient friendliness to carbon-based life forms. After the battle between the Empire and the Rebels, years ago, any attempts to settle by off-worlders were met with considerable harassment, and open hostility at times, between the native Ewoks and all humanoids. Apparently, the Empire had left a bad taste in their furry little oral cavities. She had counted on this, on the hostile natives keeping groups of settlers at bay. Jude had arrived to the planet in a small craft, a single seater ship stocked to the gills with supplies and survival gear, and landed it covertly as far as she could between settlements. She loaded the hover wagon with the most immediate necessities, threw a camouflage netting over her ship, and set a fast pace to the abandoned Imperial bunker nestled hillside near a large lake.

A branch crashed to the ground behind her, a sign that the wind was picking up and another storm was likely heading in. A forest can only grow if there's plenty of water for the great trees, after all. With this realization, Jude was able to push the panic down, for now. She had to get back to her shelter, and abandon her trek to her ship for supplies. Angrily, she threw the glove at the dead tree, pushing away the thoughts of another man's hands on her, forcing her to please him, manipulating and humiliating her. It was not the time. She fixed her mind's eye on her safe house, hurrying as if to leave the nightmare of her past in the thicket with the dried out skeleton of a tree. In her haste, she failed to notice the deep slashes in the trees, the bark charred at the edges. Trees marred by a monstrous rage.

~~~~~

The storm eased, after three days of crashing thunder and lightening searing across the sky. Jude resumed her winding trek to her ship, as she was running low on rations. Thanks to the storm, she needed to assess her craft as well. She kept the same path as before, though usually she took a different route every time, so afraid she was of being tracked down. Not by Ewoks, by other humans. When she reached the dead evergreen tree, she saw no trace of the glove. Jude intentionally decided to attribute that to the storm, rather than the alternative possibility - that the glove's owner sought to reunite it his pair. She adjusted her pack, and continued on. It was slow going, with more debris scattered on the floor the forest courtesy of the great storm that had raged day and night. Jude enjoyed the hike, however. The forest smelled fresh, and clean, and was filled only with the noise of the wildlife. No sounds of speeders, no music clamoring, no voices raised. As she climbed the last bank to her ship, she was able to make out the silhouette under the camouflage netting. Thankfully, the storm had only loosed slight branches over the top of the craft, causing no damage. She glanced around reflexively, saw nothing out of the ordinary, and approached the cargo hatch. She hurriedly rations, fish nets, snares, and precious nursery starts into her pack. Those nursery starts would save her weeks for harvesting fresh foodstuff. Thanks to the temperate climate in the region she settled, she would be able to stagger those greens and reap fresh veg several times a year. She carefully covered her ship, even replacing the debris blown down by the storm. Jude examined the landing site, with the slight damage her ship left in its wake now completely obscured by the storm's havoc. It was ironic, she noted, that she was taking such care with her ship. She never intended to return to a human settlement again. She never intended to leave this system again. Jude turned and made her way back to her safehouse. Her home.

~~~~~~  
_"Mine," he said with a calm that betrayed the violence of his actions. She blinked back a tear, as Dagen put his hand on her throat and took her, with no regard for her comfort or pleasure. At times like this, her mind almost dis-embodied. Jude thought of the night before, when she was returning home from work, after 13 grueling hours on her feet. The very soles of her feet would hurt from being on them all day. And Dagen, after staying home, tending to his writing and his studies, would demand she stop at the market, for whatever he needed that_ time. _She thought of how every step through the market would send such pains through her feet. He would refuse to fix the evening meal, anyhow. So she would do it, back aching while she stood and cleaned his dishes from earlier in the day. She was mildly annoyed, but ultimately resigned to her powerless. She felt like she'd be nothing without her husband. And Dagen was always telling her how unkind she was, how unattractive. It never even occurred to her that she did not deserve such treatment._

Jude started awake, the sobs ripping out of her almost before she became conscious. Her nightmares had been coming more and more frequently, so both her wakefulness and her unconsciousness were plagued by these unwanted memories. She cried, from fear and rage and grief, until she felt hollowed out. She grabbed her holo-pad, long since disconnected from any transponder, and pulled up a treatise on the native flora of Endor. If she was going to be chased from sleep, she would at least be doing something useful. It proved most effective as she soon nodded off again, her sleep dreamless in her sheer exhaustion.


	2. II

It was time. Jude stood ankle deep in the rocky shallows of Bottomless Lake, pulling the soggy rope in hand over hand. The net breached the surface of the lake, rounded and plump with her catch. She was almost dismayed. Although she was sorely tired of the dried rations, she loathed to put her reading on the filleting and scaling of fish into practice. Jude glanced in the net. Ten medium sized fish. Not a bad haul. She quickly pulled the net up to shore, near her makeshift cleaning station. Jude eyed her prey. Better a fish meeting its end than her. She efficiently started the messy work of beheading and cleaning her catch, one by one. She was please to note these fish were fine and plump, yielding enough meat to last her for awhile with some to put aside, salted and dried.

Some time later, she reclined by her campfire. She built a hearth into an rocky embankment, lined it with large stone from the lakeside. She found some metal panels in a maintenance room insider her bunker-slash-safehouse and constructed a modest overhang, shielding it from weather and from any watchful eyes. Jude hoped she had been careful enough. Before fleeing her vitriolic partner, she took care to hide every possible reference to her planned destination. All reference materials were safely hidden underneath some supplies in her locked cabinet at work, then taken with her the eve of her escape. Her ship was illegitimately registered, at great expense, to a large security contractor hired by mining companies to ward their operations. She told no one of her plans. All arrangements were paid through an intermediary that she personally handed credits to, and took care to hide her face and her identity.

Still, she feared. She feared Dagen would exhaust every resource at his disposal. He would leverage his good image and express only great concern that his beloved wife be returned to him. He would spend their savings, the savings she worked tirelessly to build, to get her back into his grasp. She rested her hand on the tiny pouch she wore on a cord around her neck. If that happened, if she were found, she would flee in more definitive manner. A capsule, of the most potent quick acting poison on record. Once ingested, the onset in mere seconds. Jude always had a backup plan. _You always were so selfish,_ Dagen whispered to her _. You took my best years, I wasted them on you, and now you left me._

Jude pushed the voice down, refused to engage. She was warm and full and safe and blissfully alone. She nodded off there, by her hearth, content with the meal form her own catch. The lake was to her left, sweeping out in front of her bunker to her right. The moon gently lighting the waves that rhythmically ebbed and flowed. She felt warm, safe. In that moment.

~~~~

_Jude laid on the stretcher in the medical unit, despondent. Ironically the throbbing pain had stopped, but her heart still felt like it was collapsing. Dagen sat at her side, sullenly. He did not touch her, offer any words of comfort or express any concern. The imaging droid had just left. It had scanned her belly, assessing for that telltale sign of life, the rapid heartbeat of the child growing inside of her. Instead of that fast throbbing whoosh, there was silence. Jude knew. She had seen enough in her vocational training, to know that there should be periodic inflections on the graph instead of that flat line. There was no heartbeat. The droid excused itself, likely going to get the provider to tell her what she already knew. Her baby was dead. ¨Don't tell me you are glad of it, right now," she quietly requested of her dear husband. Jude was politely asking Dagen not to tell her he was happy that she lost the baby. He said, quietly, angrily, "I TOLD you I wasn't ready. I told you that I did not want to have a baby right now. Especially with YOU."_

_She was too deadened by grief to even cry, at that moment. But a lick of anger crept up her spine. Jude knew she was done._

~~~~

Jude awoke from the dream, the fire in the heart still blazing quietly. Losing the baby. That's when she knew everything was wrong. She had figured, even if she were as awful as Dagen always told her she was, no mother should be told her partner was happy and relieved that her baby had died. Nothing she had ever done, or ever would do, could make that acceptable. This time the tears welled silently, as she watched the flames and mourned her lost child. The grief was thick, and choking, as she cried for her loss. She cried for herself, for the feeling of sheer foolishness that she let anyone treat her, as Dagen did. She wept and wept, finally falling asleep as the early light of dawn tinted the edge of the sky orange.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

He gasped, awakening with a start. Grief, not his own, was surrounding him. He chocked back a borrowed sob, frustrated. His own past was enough to contend with, why was he being blasted with a stranger´s emotional fallout as well? He rose to his feet, the planks of the abandoned tree dwelling groaning with a slight strain at his weight. He went to the balcony, saw the moon reflecting off the waters of the lake far below. It was the same grief and helplessness that gripped him when he touched his wayward glove. Some days ago, he had recovered it near the grove of trees that he last loosed his rage, blindly slashing his lightsaber at the trees until he was languid with fatigue. He found its near a fallen tree, and when he reached down and his fingers touch the smooth leather, he became engulfed by a bottomless well of grief and despondency. He quickly shoved it in his pocket and took some deep breaths until it passed.

It was said that Ewoks have some Force awareness, and he supposed that the endless darkness inside him was more than enough to steer them away, as he saw not a glimpse of one since he arrived on this backwater moon. He just needed to be here long enough to be declared dead. Maybe a couple years. Then he planned on returning to a civilized world, close enough to a settlement to get supplies. Far enough to be left alone the rest of his days.

Until he lost his glove; whoever had encountered it left a such a haunting impression of sorrow. Despite his best efforts, he was not alone here.


	3. III

The last time Jude went back to her ship for a re-up on supplies, she grabbed her collapsed one-person boat. When she was back with her “partner”, stowing supplies away as she geared up for her escape, she questioned herself repeatedly on paying the cost of the boat in credits as well as space. It was collapsible, but still had some bulk. And it was expensive, as it was made of a hearty metal alloy that was light as well as endlessly durable. Now, as she floated on the sun-speckled waters of Bottomless Lake, the boat safely moored to a nearby tree while she bobbed in the waters and watched the clouds, it was completely worth it. She kept it close to the shore, in an inlet closely sheltered by trees, to reduce anyone's visibility of her.

There was still the question of The Glove. Whose was it, and were they still here? Weeks had passed since she came upon it, and had seen no sign of anyone else. Granted, she kept close to her shelter, and generally tried to keep a low profile. Until this boat.

Jude had always loved the water. She had been overjoyed when she found the abandoned Imperial bunker, almost intact, on the shores of what was to be her Bottomless Lake. She was too afraid to power up the bunker in its entirety, so she restricted the power to only her immediate quarters, and relied on portable lamps if she needed to venture through the rest of the building. Her luck had continued, as the bunker was not part of that long ago battle on the surface of the moon, and remained intact and undamaged. It was some kind of non-essential data storage site, if the servers in the basement were anything to go by. Her quarters were the officer's lounge, with a wide window overlooking the lake, a serviceable bathing facility, and furniture that was usable. Best of all, as it was a data facility, the bunker was fortified against life-scanners and camouflaged on top from fly-overs. It was about as secure, remote, and usable as she could have hoped for.

So far, The Glove had been Jude's only real problem. It had looked un-weathered, which was mildly alarming, and she was never able to recover it since the storm, which was highly alarming. Still, if there was another person, another human here with her, it was unlikely they had anything to do with her bastard husband tracking her down, as it had been weeks and she was yet to be approached.

Her mind wandered, unfortunately, back to Dagen. Jude longed for the day when her grief and anger at her controlling, manipulative spouse were not on her mind. When he wound no longer be in her mind. She had tried to leave him before, long before the miscarriage. But Dagen was too wily to resort to fear to keep her in line. She would tell him she wanted him to change, but he wouldn't, so she was through. And Dagen would become so nice and caring and responsive. He'd apologize. He'd make love to her. He'd promise that he would be together and have a better relationship. Jude would listen. She wanted to believe him. She let him take his pleasure. And as soon as his lust was sated, he would walk out, to seek other female attention. Jude had felt utterly disposable, like trash to be left aside. Over and over this would happen, and he would cycle between attempting to control her, dominate her, with verbal abuse, telling her hateful things about herself. Treating her with utter contempt. Then he'd cycle back, to being apologetic, telling her exactly what she wanted to hear, to keep her in line. One time she felt so lost and alone she cried, right in the middle of intercourse. Dagen was tender, then, soothing her. Then the next day, he walked out again. She had no one. No one knew what he was really like. Jude was under his thumb. Until she lost the baby.

Somehow, Jude was finally able to examine this in a detached manner, as she peacefully laid in her boat. She drifted off to sleep, lulled by the waves and exhausted by another sleepless night of horrible dreams. While she slept, the rope tethering the boat to the tree loosened, slipped off. Jude's little boat drifted, across her Bottomless Lake.

>>>>>>>>>>

He had cut himself off from the Force. Or, he thought he had, until he sensed distress and grief, not his own, again. It was nearby. He sighed, stretched up from his reclined position where he had been reading, and looked out over the balcony. Over the lake. He saw the boat first, drifting near his shoreline. He thought it was empty. Then he realized there was a woman in there, asleep. She must be the one who imprinted his glove, whose dreams haunted him in the nights. She was fearful, extremely fearful. He had surmised she had gone to great lengths to hide herself here. He never even detected a ship, just one day her presence was there. He watched the boat slowly drift by, getting stuck on a dead tree wedged against some rocks. The boat's progress stilled, as he realized its course. It was driving towards the lake's outlet to a river, that led to the territory of a very aggressive Ewok tribe. He remembered her fear, her despair, her grief. "Kriff," he muttered as he quickly made his way out of the tree structure, hurrying down the stair winding around the trunk. It was built for much smaller creatures, and it'd be just his luck breaking his neck for some foolish woman who was not paying attention to her surroundings.

On the ground, the trees and greenery obscured the sight of the lake as he made a mad dash for the shoreline. He picked up the pace, and as he burst through the last bit of foliage meeting the rocky lakeshore, he crashed straight into the woman, pulling her boat in by rope, knocking them both down into the knee-high water.


	4. IV

The boat bumped against a log in the water, and Jude woke up. She looked around. Her boat had drifted. Foolish. Foolish foolish. She should never have allowed herself to fall asleep, never have counted on her iffy knot tying to keep in one place. She looked around; seeing no movement or signs of life she sighed in relief. It was getting late, and she was pretty sure she was only a short walk from her bunker as her surroundings looked somewhat familiar. Jude decided to bring the boat in, leave it on the rocky beach, and come back in the morning with the paddle that she stupidly neglected to grab. _See you cannot help but make these idiotic mistakes_. Shut up, Dagen, she thought forcefully. Jude could berate herself later. She was good at managing what was in front of her and staving off any emotional fallout later. Jude was good at surviving.

She hopped out, grateful that the water was pretty warm, and started to pull the boat in by the rope. Suddenly what felt like a moving brick wall plowed into her, knocked her down into the shallow water which cushioned her fall. She quickly got her bearings, sat up, and found herself face to face with a man. A youngish man, her age, mop of black hair on top of dark serious eyes. She was frozen, quickly assessing him. A scar vertically bisecting his right eye. He did, indeed, appear to mimic the size and density of a brick wall. Jude was not a small woman, but this guy made her feel tiny. She came to her senses, and, always one to think quickly on her feet, took off. The fellow appeared to be as shocked as she was luckily, and made no move to stop her. She frantically waded out of the lake and took off at a dead run - in the opposite direction of her safe house. She had to throw him off before returning there.

Finally she ran out of steam, coming to a stop some distance away. She listened. Surely a giant lump of a man like that would make plenty of noise if he were crashing through the forest after her. She heard nothing except the ambient fauna and the distance rush of the lake water. Jude sighed, looked around. She discovered with relief she was in a familiar place. The evergreen tree grove where she saw the glove. Jude looked at the trees. There were burned slashes in the bark. All around. All the trees surrounding the little clearing bore those marks. She wondered what could make those sort of burns, but did not have time to pause. She resumed the winding course to her ship, where she had an emergency go back of supplies and a sleeping bag to spend the night under the camouflage, decently far from her bunker. In the morning, she would cut around the long way back to her safe house.

The man looked as surprised as she was so he likely had nothing to do with Dagen. Still, it did not mean he did not pose a threat.

Jude seriously regretted not bringing some kind of droid to help her keep watch. She sighed and plodded along.

~~~~ 

She dreamed again that night. 

_Jude was thrilled at finally going to see some old friends, as she gathered some items for a short trip. She hadn’t seen them in awhile, and somehow she convinced Dagen to go with her. She finished up her morning tea, and headed for the pile of clean clothes. She found Dagen there, undressed, unbathed, quietly reading. In his sleep clothes. “We need to head out soon. They are expecting us,” she reminded him. He looked at her contemptuously. “I am READING the NEWS. And anyway, I don’t feel like going. I don’t like them.”_

_“Fine, then I am going,” Jude shrugged._

_“I haven’t seen you all week, and now you want to leave?”_

_“I’m trying to spend time with you,” she snapped back._

_“Why are you being hostile. I just don’t want to go! I’m not going, and you’re staying with me. Why do you have to be so unpleasant and difficult?” Dagen turned his attention back to reading._

_This was her last couple of friends that she had left. One by one, Dagen decided he no longer liked any of her friends. This one was too odd, this one was unpleasant, that one was a bad influence. She had nobody left but him._

_Jude sent her friends the message that she had to cancel, and sat by herself quietly for a long time, wondering about this terrible gaping emptiness inside her._


	5. Chapter 5

It had been weeks since her literal run-in with the human man. As Jude looked over her burgeoning crops, the early morning light warming her face, she hoped that he had not taken up residence here. She wasn't going to dwell on it, anyhow. She had no control over that, and tonight she had salad greens to look forward to.

First, she had to make another supply run to her ship. She was almost done settling in. She found the best place to secure her fishing nets in the lake. She could clean a fish in seconds. Her greens were neatly planted, the harvest times staggered so she picked them every few weeks. Her outdoor hearth was sturdy, and she managed to reinforce it successfully before the last rain storm so it needed no post-storm repairs. She even rigged some shelving over one side of the fire, and had started enjoying fish rich with a salty smoky flavor. The forest even yielded some kind of berry that she chanced. It was not listen in her codex of poisonous plants native to Endor, and it didn't make her sick either. When she planned her escape from the grasp of her awful husband, she knew that renewable edible resources were the most important supplies to focus on. It looked like her plan had worked.

It was extreme, she knew. She told no one of her plan. Once Jude made her mind up, there was no swaying her, so she did not see any benefit in talking her plan through. Outside her home, she was a very capable, smart woman who could take care of herself. Her partner had rendered her helpless, had neutered her capable spirit. Jude knew that the only way to get out of his reach and be free of him was to drop out of existence. She so feared his manipulation and gaslighting that she chose this life, away from every single other human, to keep herself safe. Safe from Dagen, and safe from the judgment of others, because she felt like such a fool to allow anyone to treat her that way. Safe from giving anyone else the chance to.

_Or maybe you're keeping them safe from you, so you don't ruin anyone else the way you've ruined me, used me up,_ whispered Dagen in the back of her mind. Jude pushed that away, firmly. It was easy to do in the light of day, surrounding by growing things and feeling the speckled sunlight on her face. Nights were a different matter.

On the way to her ship, she took the path that brought her through the clearing surrounded by the slashed tree trunks. Jude rotated which paths she took to and from her spacecraft every time, trying to stay unpredictable, harder to detect. She crossed the clearing, listening carefully. No unusual noises, just the native wildlife. At the end of the clearing her path continued on, but she had to climb up a steep embankment due to the massive tangle of dead trees and bramble blocking the way. She scaled it easily remedied, the roots making handholds and footholds, and walked around the thicket blocking the path. On the other side her path continued on to the ship. She figured that difficult pathways such as this made her most of a challenge to track. The embankment was not as steep on the other side of the tangle of branches, and she slid down. She tripped over an errant root at the bottom, falling to her hands and knees with a curse. As her head turned up to right herself onto her feet, Jude found herself looking into the unconscious face of the man from the lakeshore.

_> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>_

He had terrible luck, he reflected as he took stock of his injuries. Granted, he did find this intact structure high in the trees, completely abandoned. He brought enough supplies to lay low long enough to hopefully be declared dead. Then, he had the poor fortune to be close enough to the woman he saw by the lake. And now this, this penetrating wound in the lower part of his belly. He sustained the injury diving into the lake on a whim. Such an idiot. The water wasn't as deep as he supposed and a dead log with a pointed branch caught him the belly. He loaded the wound with bacta, using basically his whole stash. He didn't dare attempt any Force healing, the energy that would require for such a wound would light up his presence like a beacon all over the nearest systems, to anyone remotely Force-sensitive. Not an option.

That was three days ago, and he watched as the wound became angry and red. He started have chills, then cold sweats when the fever would break. The infection was likely in his bloodstream, and he knew he needed more advanced medical help. He may have infection inside his belly too. He grabbed a small bag, threw in the holopad of his books, his father's dice, the legacy lightsaber, and set out to his ship.

Every step was heavy, difficult. He pressed on. He wouldn't die here. If he died here, Snoke would have won. The wasn't the plan. He just wanted out, wanted his freedoms. He fought his way towards the grove of evergreens, where he had vented his rage so many weeks ago. One foot. Then the other. Suddenly, across his path, there was a thick mess of dead trees, branches, brush. Steep hills on either side of him. The only way around was to climb up. He decided to rest, gather his strength. He sat heavily, reached for his water. He had a sip of the lukewarm water, rested his back against the steep hill. He blacked out.

~~~~~~~

_Sure, heal him, but you better not befriend him. You don’t want him to find out what an utter waste you are. How unkind you are, how you are selfish and uncaring and cold. You will heal him, then break him. Remember how you took my good years, because you are so messed up? Look what you did to me._

Jude could ignore the echo of Dagen whispering to her, as long as she had work to do. 

Jude looked into the face of the man from the lake. He was completely pale; his face had no color despite the sweat that shone on his forehead. She checked his wrists. His skin was warm and damp, his pulse rapid and thready. "Infection. Shock," her brain helpfully supplied. He would die without her help. She had the medical supplies in her safe house. She could treat him. But that would mean bringing him there. He would need care, rehydration, medicine. He was a young man. He hadn't tried to hurt her. Jude had seen no sign of him which meant he had been trying to leave her alone as much as she had been avoiding him.

She wouldn't leave him to die. Despite her misgivings, she had no evidence that he would hurt her. Jude's fear was overcome by her steadfast sense of morality, to always try to do the right thing. _Why bother?_ Whispered Dagen _. He will just see you for the horrid person you are once you patch him up. You will drain him of patience as you've drained me._ Not now, please, she responded internally, somewhat frantically.

One thing was for sure. To move him, she'd need that hover wagon. He was the size of a bantha, and dead weight. She headed back to her shelter to grab the equipment to relocate him.

~~~~

After much struggle, she got him into the bed. Jude was thankful her quarters were large enough to accommodate her makeshift stretcher bearing her patient. She slid him onto the mattress, shoved the hover wagon into the hallway, and got to work. She quickly found the source of the infection. An abdominal wound, some days old by the looks of it. She grabbed her handheld scanner, and was relieved to find no pocket of infection dwelling inside. It looks like he had a bloodstream infection likely trigger by the initial injury. The wound was angry, red, but healed. He needed systemic antimicrobial treatment. She grabbed a dose from her precious stash, injected him. She gave him some intravenous hydration, to boot.

He better be worth the supplies she was expending on him. Oh well, Jude sighed. Doing the right thing always meant she would be able to live with herself, which was more important than a few medical supplies. But she still engaged the door lock from the outside, keeping him secured in the room. She was still going to be cautious.

It was late, as she finally collapsed into the soft in the main room, adjoined by the sleeping chamber. She drifted off to sleeping, figuring if her charge woke up he would not hesitate to make it known. Being locked in a room would piss her off, at any rate.

>>>>>>>>>

He woke up with a start. He felt damp, sticky. Warm? He realized he was laying in a bed. He sat up, looked around. Small window. One closed door. He felt remarkably better. A little wobbly, but not lightheaded. He stood slowly, walked to the door. When he activated the switch, nothing happened.

It was the woman, had to be. No one else was around. She must have come upon his unconscious form, gave him shelter, and treatment. He remembered her fear, it was tangible. No wonder she locked the door. He knocked politely. Waited.

The door slid open, revealing his rescuer.

"Who are you?" Ben demanded, slightly agitated from his vulnerable state.

  
  



End file.
